Like its Greek predecessor, Janielle Kastner’s Anne-Tig-Uh-Knee is a flood of words and ideas. How do you build a society? What are the rules? What happens when someone breaks them?
Even before the characters begin interrogating one another, the former Dallas playwright has the chatty cast asking audience members if they have what they need. Glasses of wine and water are passed out from a makeshift table on the minimally decorated, in this case, beige-box stage.
The cast also makes less tangible, humorous offers and warns that there will be no bathroom break.
Kastner means to grab our attention from the get-go as her new play, a largely faithful adaptation of Sophocles’ fifth-century-B.C. drama Antigone, premieres in a production by Second Thought Theatre. No problem.
In the small confines of Bryant Hall, the audience is on top of the actors, including the irrepressible Parker Gray in multiple roles and Kelsey Milbourn as the Greek mythological figure of the title.
One of Antigone’s two brothers has killed the other while trying to topple his regime and dies himself. The stubborn daughter of Oedipus faces a death sentence for burying him, breaking a rule imposed by Kreon, the new king.
From a few crates for sitting and contemplating and a round platform for the big speeches, the characters begin debating her fate the moment Anne-Tig-Uh-Knee starts. Kastner’s script and Carson McCain’s direction sharply delineate the questions at hand, building persuasive, easily understood arguments for both sides. It’s quite a dilemma.
On opening night Oct. 13, Gray, Amber Bonasso as Kreon, Kristen Lazarchick as Antigone’s sister and Francisco Grifaldo as her boyfriend used heightened theatricality to bring Kastner’s points home clearly and forcefully.
Milbourn took a much lower-key approach, quietly delivering Antigone’s lines as if she were resigned to the inevitable outcome. Sure, the character’s principled stance comes across, but what about the confidence in her beliefs, the will to argue with gusto in their favor?
Instead, she becomes a martyr, leaving the more convincing defense to her sister, who will say anything to save her, and her boyfriend, who dreams of an idyllic future together.
It’s the production’s one major flaw, stacking the deck in favor of Kreon’s decision to execute her. The other actors help overcome it, led by Bonasso as the king who tries to give Antigone a way out while also possessing the wisdom to divine the long-term repercussions of letting her go. Bonasso’s strong, nuanced performance makes Kreon’s troubled mind palpable.
“Heroes won’t save us,” Kreon says. “Glory won’t save us. God won’t save us. … Rules will save us. Order will save us.”
Kastner’s script shifts gears a few times, particularly in a flashback to an earlier, happier time and a flash-forward to an anniversary remembrance of Antigone that includes a funny fourth-grade essay contest. Humor often provides relief, starting with Gray’s mispronunciation that gives the play its title.
The playwright’s clever arguments and deft structure make for a compelling night of theater even beyond its interestingly tangled debate over the role of societal rules and their consequences.
Details
Anne-Tig-Uh-Knee runs through Oct. 28 at Bryant Hall, 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd. $25. secondthoughttheatre.com.